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WSJ: Turkish Progress

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  • WSJ: Turkish Progress

    TURKISH PROGRESS

    Wall Street Journal
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1201610951 68825203.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
    Jan 30 2008

    Turkey's long struggle to build a liberal society is one of many baby
    steps forward and back. So it was Monday.

    First, one backward. Atilla Yayla was convicted and given a 15-month
    suspended sentence yesterday for daring to suggest that the one-party
    secular regime imposed by "this man" -- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk --
    wasn't "progressive." For expressing himself, Mr. Yayla fell afoul of
    a little-known 1951 statute against insulting the long-dead founder
    of modern Turkey.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government promises to clean
    up Turkey's statute books. The 1951 law is one of about three dozen
    that restrict free speech, among them the infamous Article 301, which
    broadly forbids insults against "Turkishness." Parliament yesterday
    was expected to begin amending 301, until the ruling Justice and
    Development Party (or AKP) announced the latest "delay" in two years.

    The government says this tactical retreat was necessary in order to
    lift the ban on wearing Islamic headscarves in public universities.

    This particular limit on free expression is one of the most contentious
    issues in Turkey, pitting an AKP rooted in Islam against the secular
    establishment in the civil service and military. Last year their
    dispute nearly brought on a military coup, only to get resolved by
    early elections that the AKP won in a rout. In a welcome change,
    the AKP is finalizing a compromise on the headscarf with the secular
    opposition MHP party. Pushing an amendment to Article 301 now, the
    AKP says, could put this deal in jeopardy.

    To achieve his stated goal of opening up Turkey, however, Mr. Erdogan
    will have to stand up to the ultranationalists who use Article 301 and
    other means, sometimes violent, to stifle free speech. His government
    last week did take a brave and important step forward by arresting 13
    ultranationalists who allegedly were plotting to incite armed revolt
    and murder the Nobel-laureate novelist Orhan Pamuk. (Two years ago,
    Mr. Pamuk was charged under Article 301.) Police are also investigating
    whether the group was behind the 2006 murders of Armenian-Turkish
    journalist Hrant Dink and an Italian Catholic priest.

    Like Kurdish and ultranationalist terrorists, al Qaeda can't stand the
    thought of a democratic and liberal Turkey able to reconcile itself
    with Islam and modernity. Prosecutors yesterday began interrogating
    25 suspected al Qaeda fighters who were captured last week while
    allegedly plotting bomb attacks across Turkey.

    Mr. Erdogan has his work cut out for him, and yesterday shows that
    progress won't always be smooth. Should the Prime Minister take
    the necessary steps to make Turkey a truly free society, he might
    yet have an ally in Mr. Yayla. The professor leads the Association
    for Liberal Thinking in Turkey. Its goal is to find a middle ground
    between Islamism and Ataturk's state-imposed nationalism.
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